What is a reasonable cost for a CPA?

[Johann Jells]

My wife hates our CPA. We don't get much advice, he's disorganized, and the last straw was him sending out a group email to 200+ clients exposing everyone's contacts! That's like a 1998 internet mistake. I would never do that to my tenants! But he's apparently inexpensive. 

Our taxes ARE a bit more complex than average, 2 schedule C's in addition to an LLC holding our 3 properties, filing as an S, no recent schedule A since the standard deduction was raised. But I used to do it myself using Turbotax prior to the LLC. I feel like we're paying simply for data entry.

So what's reasonable? Being in the NY Metro we know it's more than some areas, but we got a price from a referred CPA in Minneapolis, and they were way more expensive!

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Johann Jells:

My wife hates our CPA. We don't get much advice, he's disorganized, and the last straw was him sending out a group email to 200+ clients exposing everyone's contacts! That's like a 1998 internet mistake. I would never do that to my tenants! But he's apparently inexpensive. 

Our taxes ARE a bit more complex than average, 2 schedule C's in addition to an LLC holding our 3 properties, filing as an S, no recent schedule A since the standard deduction was raised. But I used to do it myself using Turbotax prior to the LLC. I feel like we're paying simply for data entry.

So what's reasonable? Being in the NY Metro we know it's more than some areas, but we got a price from a referred CPA in Minneapolis, and they were way more expensive!

You get what you pay for. I used a friend as my CPA for years and she charged around $600 to file taxes, but that was her friend rate. We really increased the complexity in the past three years (33 doors, five LLCs) and it was more than she wanted to handle. I was interested in a tax strategist anyway, so we made the switch. My tax strategist cost me $8,000 for 2021 strategies and tax preparation. Sounds expensive, but she's also going to save me 3x that amount and I'll probably get a refund for the first time in 12 years.

Financially, it made sense, but I think we're over-paying and she was a little sloppy with communication and organization. I plan to search for a new tax strategist as soon as this tax filing is complete.

I did some research online and the general consensus is that an accountant will run $3,000 - $5,000 a year for a small business, then another $500 - $1,000 for tax preparation. Those numbers seem reasonable to me because a good accountant can pay for themselves in savings.